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It’s a high-style way to navigate the mountains, but the TT RS is no prima donna. With 354 pound-feet of torque at 1700 rpm and all-wheel drive, this red-orange nugget launches like a magma loogie. Launch control revs the five-pot to 3500 rpm and then dumps the clutch, so that the TT RS blows past 60 mph in just 3.2 seconds. The apogee of car cuteness until Pixar got into the game, the TT has turned nasty, running 11.6-second quarter-miles at 119 mph.

Thrust from the five is immediate and monstrous no matter where you are in the powerband. But we do wish the engine had a more natural soundtrack. Its warble is unique, but in either quiet or loud mode, it sounds so synthesized that it might as well be a four-cylinder trying to sound like a five. The only high-performance quintuple on the market should be allowed to trumpet its weirdness. (The Ford Transit’s turbo-diesel five is unlikely to stir any souls.)

Audi’s little coupe has no match when it comes to interior styling. It’s fastidiously detailed, with hardly a contour change or line break that isn’t set off with a new material or finish. Just look at the seats—black leather with red contrast stitching around diamond-patterned perforations, each of which allows a peek at the red underside of the seating surface. Even the seatbelts have red bands along their edges (part of the $900 RS Design package). Audi incorporates all of this without making the TT look fussy or overly busy, and the in-dash air vents seem to have benefited from as much engineering as the entire Dodge Dart.

Perhaps it’s the back seat—strictly for kids—but the Audi’s interior feels more spacious than the Porsche’s. That said, it’s in the Audi that tall drivers will find their heads jackhammering the headliner on rough roads. That Sport suspension swaps in stiffer fixed-rate dampers for the standard adjustable units. Technical director Eric Tingwall noted: “The short suspension travel, stiff compression, and loose rebound control mean this car can feel both harsh and springy—often in the same suspension event.” It’s fine on smooth pavement and for commuter duty, but on rough roads, you get the impression that the suspension is taking each input, then magnifying it and propelling the body upward with two times the force.

And despite that, the Audi can’t match the Porsche’s feel or feedback. The lack of body movement and dearth of steering feel make it hard to tell when the Audi is at its limits. You end up driving the car not quite certain how close you are to the edge of control, which is particularly unnerving in the wet.

The TT RS is an accomplishment, a dramatic departure from what the TT had been, and an impressive car. It’s just a little too narrowly focused, a little too compromised, to beat the Cayman. Then again, the Cayman is very nearly a perfect sports car.